@Paul said:

Hi everybody, Highly interesting speculations there, LAJ...I can respond to this one quite clearly Vienna Ensemble PRO will not be a notation program. Regarding multiple licenses:I'm sure you understand that we can't answer individual quantity discount requests in a public forum. With previous upgrades, different combinations of license amounts, there are simply many parameters to consider. @kristijan999: Sorry to see you so upset, especially after you hesitated to contact us via support@vsl.co.at with the first troubles... and after so many successful support interactions in the past. I hope you will change your mind when you see what VE Pro 7 can actually do for you. Best,Paul

Ok, Im going to just step in here and say, even tho I have zero authority, you folks need to take a chill pill. For the love of God, Ive never seen such a whiny group of old farts. Jesus, and I thought I was a grumpy SOB.

The pricing is listed at 75 euros for the first upgrade and 45 for each subsequent upgrade. To upgrade all three licenses, that is, lets see, Im not very good at math, even as a physics major, but lets take a shot at this...

75 + 45 + 45 = 165 Euros

Now, that seems like alot, until you consider a couple of things. First, you KEEP your 3 existing licenses for VEP 6 when you upgrade. This means, you are really ADDING another VEP license to your key, the new version to be specific.

I dont know about the rest of you, but Ive paid alot of money for my software upgrades, often times, not worth the price. Cubase Pro runs me $150 yearly, with a base price of $600, and thats just for one license.

Second, for many users, we dont use the server portion of VEP. Vienna in my opinion, incorrectly sold VEP in a 3 pack bundle in the first place, it should have been sold as a single license, giving users like myself the option to buy VEP for 100 Euros or so rather than the 285 it currently is. I guarantee, it would have sold better if it had, because honestly, at 285 Euros, it flat out is not worth the price if you only need one license. Vienna is fixing this with this upgrade.

For those bitching about epic orchestra, I find this absolutely fascinating. How many bought VEP 6 specifically for the first epic orchestra? I know it was one of the three reasons I made that purchase, was so that I had a light weight library for sketching. It is the reason I purchased Smart Orchestra as well, its a nice light library for sketching. Im looking at Epic Orchestra 2 and I just made this purchase specifically because of Epic Orchestra 2, because, it has more than Smart Orchestra, but still remains light enough for some sketching.

I dont have any Synchron libraries, to be fair, and I only have licenses for MIRx complete, Instruments Pro, Ensemble 6 & now 7, Smart Spheres, and Special Edition complete, just to give you an idea of where Im coming from. However, I do have some significantly heavier libraries, the entire East West platinum sound library for example, and it is a complete bear to use for sketching, simply because loading a brass section is an easy 45 second load on a SATA SSD. Cinesamples is not much better, and my spitfire Albion collection is probably on par with cinesamples. Vienna is my go to for sketching, and if it werent so expensive for their complete libraries, it would be my go to for a final project.

As a user of the Special Edition libraries, this pricing structure also makes sense from the sense that, it appears Synchron is the direction Vienna is going, and my guess is, the VI collections will be phased out. That doesnt make me exactly thrilled, to be honest. However, it does give me an opportunity to play with the Synchron stuff at a frankly unparalled price point. No other company I know of is offering an orchestra in a box for less than $100 Euros, and Vienna now is, and you are getting Ensemble Pro on top of that. Or, you can look at it the other way around, you are getting Ensemble Pro with some great sounding libraries perfect for sketching, with more flexibility than other lightweight libraries.

Is it diengenuous for Vienna to suggest they are "giving away" Epic Orchestra 2 with the purchase of VEP 7? Yea, a little bit. I mean, shoot, they could just charge 45 Euros for each upgrade license including the first license. That might have been a better strategy. Provide an option, 45 Euros for each VEP upgrade, including the first license, or, 75 Euros for the first license and we will bundle epic orchestra.

So yea, I guess for ya'll that have spent thousands of dollars on Vienna sounds can bitch about the additional 30 Euros that Vienna is charging because they are forcing the epic orchestra to be bundled in to the first VEP upgrade, or, you can take your head out of the sand and realize that they are restructuring how VEP is sold to make it more pallatable for people who dont need 3 freaking licenses of VEP and have made a decision to basically charge 30 more Euros so that people who have never used Vienna before can have a decent library to understand what they are getting.

Lets also not forget, Synchron, which is as feature complete as instruments pro, cost nothing, and in many ways, is even more feature rich than instruments pro. Lets also not forget, Synchron is brining many of the FX capabilities that Vienna suite provides, at no additional charge, other than the cost of buying a library.

In many ways, Vienna is moving forward and trying to come up with more attractive pricing because, Vienna is just not attractive to new users. Its pricing is unjustifiably expensive and has no real affordable ways to test drive its products.

You can debate that last paragraph, until you start to look at the market right now. To have a decent library to work with, Vienna's only option was the Special Edition library at over 1700 Euros. Look to East West, you have a monthly payment option of $25. Spitfire offers their Albion 1 collection for $300. Heck, even 8dio has their orchestral starter pack for $600. I for one am glad to see Vienna providing some options for people who dont have thousands of Euros to spend, an alternative option.

God bless you Paul, the rest of you, either buy the upgrade, dont buy the upgrade, or wait and see, and feel free to ask questions. However, lets knock it off on the whining. No one is forcing you to buy it. If you dont need or want EO2, wait and see what VEP7 brings. If EO2 does interest you, 75 Euros is a great price for EO2 alone, putting aside youll get a license for VEP7.

@Paul said:

Hi LAJ, 

The german word "Vorfreude" captures what we feel here in Vienna pretty well: I'd translate it with "pleasant anticipation".

More features will be announced as soon as I am 100% sure that everything they work as they should, in all possible environments. Will definitely keep you in the loop!

BTW: We just added our Giant Taiko drum as a BONUS and THANK YOU for all early adopters 😊
Find the download file here. 

Best, 
Paul

Hi Paul,

I hope VSL has learned their lesson from this fiasco.  

Hello,

I have just upgraded 2 licencses of VEP6 to VE7.

I own 3 licenses, what will happen with the third one for VEP6?

2. Where will be the promised Taiko Drum access?

Keep up the good work, I believe the VEP is the best thing that could happen to musician ever. It  is good that you can invest in a powerful PC that is cheaper than a second Mac for your DAW, so there is alwyas a benefit.

Tell me please, do you have ANY plans, because the worst thing for me is that

1. you have to map automations through automation 2. That it is not compatibile with NI Complete, a pity and 3. Logic MULTI output, this is the most sad thing. Do you work on it?

with best regards

Hi Adia,

1) Your VE PRO 6 licenses will stay as they are.

2) Bonus files can be found with your Synchron Library Downloads.

3) More information as soon as our features are confirmed!

Best,
Paul

I notice from an email from VSL that the introductory offer expires on Feb 28th,  so if we don't get more info on what VEP7 is before then,  will this introductory offer be extended ?  or do we really just have to buy something and hope it does something we want ?

I am very confused why everyone is so hostile about this release. I just purchased it. With a very modest investment I am recieving version 6, I will have version 7 when it is released. The new Epic Orchestra 2.0 is 10 times the size of the previous version, and it has Synchron compatibilty with some samples.  It is included for free yet some people are still complaining about it. Sounds like people are upset about having to pay to upgrade to a newer version, but this is normal with most software. You will still have your multiple license verision of 6 to use if you have invested in it, And nothing is to stop you from purchasing one or two upgrade licenses if you need them. I think it is a great deal and I look forward to using it. 

@andyjh said:

I notice from an email from VSL that the introductory offer expires on Feb 28th,  so if we don't get more info on what VEP7 is before then,  will this introductory offer be extended ?  or do we really just have to buy something and hope it does something we want ?

@Remoteguy said:

I am very confused why everyone is so hostile about this release. I just purchased it. With a very modest investment I am recieving version 6, I will have version 7 when it is released. The new Epic Orchestra 2.0 is 10 times the size of the previous version, and it has Synchron compatibilty with some samples.  It is included for free yet some people are still complaining about it. Sounds like people are upset about having to pay to upgrade to a newer version, but this is normal with most software. You will still have your multiple license verision of 6 to use if you have invested in it, And nothing is to stop you from purchasing one or two upgrade licenses if you need them. I think it is a great deal and I look forward to using it. 

@Adia said:

I have 3 licenses of VEP6. I bought 2 upgrades to 7. Have I lost 2 licenses because I am confused??

This is what I did, so WHAT have I lost acording to you?

@Adia said:

I have 3 licenses of VEP6. I bought 2 upgrades to 7. Have I lost 2 licenses because I am confused??

@Adia said:

I have 3 licenses of VEP6. I bought 2 upgrades to 7. Have I lost 2 licenses because I am confused??

@Remoteguy said:

I am very confused why everyone is so hostile about this release. I just purchased it. With a very modest investment I am recieving version 6, I will have version 7 when it is released. The new Epic Orchestra 2.0 is 10 times the size of the previous version, and it has Synchron compatibilty with some samples.  It is included for free yet some people are still complaining about it. Sounds like people are upset about having to pay to upgrade to a newer version, but this is normal with most software. You will still have your multiple license verision of 6 to use if you have invested in it, And nothing is to stop you from purchasing one or two upgrade licenses if you need them. I think it is a great deal and I look forward to using it. 

You don't lose two licenses. You don't lose any licenses. However you do have to pay to upgrade each license if you want them to be on version 7. Nothing is stopping you from using your other 2 version 6 licenses as nobody has taken them away from you.  I am not trying to be unsympethetic to your situation, but upgrades are completely at your discretion. And it sounds like you only need one license for a Master and a Slave computer....

@Remoteguy said:

I am very confused why everyone is so hostile about this release. I just purchased it. With a very modest investment I am recieving version 6, I will have version 7 when it is released. The new Epic Orchestra 2.0 is 10 times the size of the previous version, and it has Synchron compatibilty with some samples. It is included for free yet some people are still complaining about it. Sounds like people are upset about having to pay to upgrade to a newer version, but this is normal with most software. You will still have your multiple license verision of 6 to use if you have invested in it, And nothing is to stop you from purchasing one or two upgrade licenses if you need them. I think it is a great deal and I look forward to using it.

I only see 1 license on one of my iLok's

I too had the 3 license setup from before 

VEP 6 is $285.

VEP 7 is $75 for the first license...

plus $45 for the second...

plus $45 for the third...

My math shows that to upgrade all three is $165. That is 58% of the cost of VEP 6, not double.

@adriaantaylor said:

I only see 1 license on one of my iLok's

I too had the 3 license setup from before 

@littlewierdo said:

VEP 6 is $285. VEP 7 is $75 for the first license... plus $45 for the second... plus $45 for the third... My math shows that to upgrade all three is $165. That is 58% of the cost of VEP 6, not double.

@David Molina said:

Wow, I would really hate to have you all as customers. They haven't disclosed all the details yet and you guys are already whinning about things you don't know yet. Just be patient and wait for them to reveal all the details. Once they reveal everything and you still don't like it, send them an email. Amazing.

I totally agree with that. People were complaining about the fact that you had to buy the whole bundle again to get a 4th license, and now that you can buy individual licenses, they're still complaining. If the upgrade contained the three licenses, the price would have been much higher than 75 euros. And the Epic Orchestra 2.0 is a free bonus but they're even complaining about that. So yes, definitly the worst custommers ever.

There's a great solution to that. Include three licenses with the base package and then sell additional licenses at the given price.  

It's pretty clear to me that people are simply saying that the upgrade costs too much. If it was $75 from VE5 to VE6 for three licenses, then it should be comparable from VE6 to VE7. You can't argue that the price would be higher if more licenses were included and then also argue that it isn't higher because the extra fluff is included. 

Beyond that, I'm definitely on the side of "who cares about epic orchestra."  For that matter, I don't care about the VSL effects either, I have plenty of effects, they work great.  VSL should realize that at least some of their customers for this product have almost no interest in orchestral libraries at all.  Yes, I use all three license, and yes, I use networking, and, for me, the networking is the only reason I own, and recommend, the product in the first place. I'd be willing to bet that the overwhelming majority of customers who only own VEP actually do use the networking and may feel similarly. 

This product is useful to people outside of VSL's typical customer base. Instead of treating us like your orchestral customers why don't you guys consider trying to market more effectively to non-orchestral customers who need this kind of solution.